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HERE COMES MY BREAKDOWN

There’s a lot of crazy stuff going on right now, but is it too soon to call it a culture war? I’m not sure, but the fact that it’s all happening at once scares the shit out of me.

The bad people have wanted Howard Stern off the air for the last twenty years, but Janet Jackson flashes one nipple and now, suddenly, lesbian butt bongo or whatever he’s doing these days could be lost forever. Is it just me, or are we living in the Age of Overreaction? When even Rush Limbaugh is worried about free speech erosion, you know things have gotten bad.

In other news, George W. is playing the gay card to pander to his evangelical pals, who are sure that what Gavin Newsome has unleashed in San Francisco is the fourth sign of the Apocalypse (or however many signs there are — don’t make me look it up). Aren’t these the same people who told us the Rapture was coming four years ago because a bunch of computer programmers took a couple of shortcuts when setting up their date-recognition software? Sorry, but you only get to predict Armageddon once. If you’re wrong, you clearly don’t have a hotline to Heaven, so the rest of us don’t have to listen to you. Ooh, watch out, George, you’ve got Rosie O’Donnell pissed! As we all remember, when people lie to her, they get cancer. Who knows what God does to people who tell her she can’t get married.

Speaking of God, look for him to top Entertainment Weekly’s next Power List. Millions of people are rushing out to see to see his kid star in a movie called “Let’s Watch Some Rotten Jews Beat the Crap Outta Jesus” or something like that. See, the closer you are to God, the more likely you are to believe that the guy from “Braveheart”‘s version of some other people’s versions of something that happened 2,000 years ago, presented in super-splatter-vision with Dolby surround sound is the gospel truth. Oh, sorry, I’m not supposed to criticize the movie, because that just feeds Mel Gibson’s martyrdom complex, the way criticizing the Patriot Act made me a traitor. Sorry, Mel, but I don’t think martyrs should threaten Frank Rich’s dog. Yeah, I get it, you don’t want to contradict your dad because of all that stuff in your favorite book about honoring your father and mother. But you know what? My dad once told me black people were lazy, and I ripped him a new one. I still love the guy, but if he ever denied the Holocaust, there would’ve been truh-bullllllllllll.

I sure hope Charlize Theron wins an Oscar for “Monster” this weekend, because that’ll take my mind off all this terrifying shit for about five seconds. Oh, what a blissful five seconds that will be. I wonder what she’ll be wearing! And will Tom and Nicole cross paths on the red carpet? Joan and Melissa, take me away!

Part of me tells me to calm down. This is what Republicans always do. They have a couple of victories, then they get greedy, they go too far and the sensible people of America wise up and rein them in a little. Then part of me says people like me sat around Germany waiting for the sensible people to do their thing while a guy with a bad moustache forced the Von Trapp family to skip out early on their singing competition and flee over the Alps. (That’s right. I played the Hitler card. Prove me wrong, you right-wing kooks.) Then I worry that by getting angry, I’m playing right into the bad people’s hands, allowing George W. and his stupid amendments and Mel Gibson and his “I dare you to call me anti-Semitic” creepiness and the FCC and their new “Seven dirty words? Why not seven thousand?” policy to shove a wedge between me and all the stupid idiots I hate. Maybe the answer isn’t to call names, but to reach out with love. We can get through this. America will start to act like America again someday, and we’ll all live together in harmony.